The context :

In my own quest to find a good CPU to really play Arma3, on a budget I had failed with the Pentium G4500 (1st episode on CanardPC Forums ... in French). I thought I had found a good candidate to be what I am calling the "Minimum Recommendable" to play Arma3. Ultimately, it has gone wrong due to the processor two cores limitations.In game, the Pentium G4500 2 cores were constantly loaded up to 100% and the phenomenon of "bottleneck" deprives us of any hope of being able to play up to the minimum level -in my approach 20FPS- on Tanoa.

You're going to point out to me, rightly, that no one is playing with such a weak set-up, but I've noticed several times in forums that players on a tight budget or absent-minded try to do it ... and they had problems.

From my point of view, it’s clear, it’s no longer possible to play Arma3 with a Core 2Duo E6600 and a GeForce 9800 GT. This "Minimum" config for Arma3 will allow you to display the game and to work on the editor and even to have a glimpse of what playing means on Stratis but it doesn't allow you to get a fair gaming experience on all Arma3 official terrains.

The upcoming release of Ryzen led Intel to consider a far-reaching counter-attack against its finally threatened Empire, the release at the beginning of this year of 3 Pentiums with HT: Pentium G4560, Pentium G4600, Pentium G4620.

We will see in a near future what AMD will release in the upcoming R3 Ryzen lineup for players with a limited budget, but here and now, let see if we get an option to play at a lower cost with the cheapest of these Pentiums.

The test :

A- the hardware

1 ° Pentium G4560With 2 cores and 4 threads, it looks like an i3-killer in terms of price / performance ratio and, considering reviews, benchs and other tests, it seems to be an interesting candidate.

On the program as intended today*:- Settings,- Bench tests with Arma3Mark-Stratis and YAAB- Tests on SP missions "4 contre1" on Altis and "Anti-Syndicat" on Tanoa

* Settings:

The settings are those given by the game auto-detection:In General, the Quality settings are on "High", Note that the "water reflection" option provided by the Visual Update is activated and set to "-High-"The 100% CPU and mixed CPU / GPU options are set:- Overall visibility at 2200m.- Terrain in "High" and Shadows in "Very High".In Display, the VSYNC is deactivated.All settings in the AA & PP section are active.

* Bench tests with Arma3Mark-Stratis and YAAB:

Arma3Mark-Stratis: the average score of 10 tests on the Arma3Mark - Stratis bench is 60 FPS

YAAB or Yet Another Arma Benchmark: the result is 29/30 FPS.

* SP missions tests:

4 vs 1 - Altis: In this mission of the FIA groups are fighting motorized units from the AAF in Pyrgos.

In this mission, the game runs fairly regularly in the zone of 25/30 FPS which is quite playable.In a more qualitative and subjective way, playing in "High" makes it possible to appreciate the environment and to better distinguish the threats, besides the feeling in play is good, fluid, without loss of FPS in movement or during shots.

Anti-Syndikat - Tanoa: the second mission played is a transposition on Tanoa of the previous mission.In this mission, Gendarmerie, helped by groups from the FAT32 (Front d’ Auto-défense de Tanoa) is fighting the Syndikat gangs in Gorgetown.

In this mission, the game runs regularly around the 20 FPS level and remains fluid and constantly playable in the engagement and /or during player fast moves. I must admit nevertheless that Tanoa seems difficult grounds for this entry level configuration.

Partial conclusion

The platform used Pentium G4560 / MSI 250I-Pro / 8GB DDR4 Crucial 2400MHz / SSD 256GB Intel 600p is solid and stable.By combining it with a basic graphics card like the GTX 750Ti, performance with Arma3 is rather good in SP.In the mission on Tanoa, my hypothesis is that we are near the limits of what the processor can do but from a subjective point of view, the game with this configuration always remains fluid, playable.